Posted on 02/27/2005 3:34:59 PM PST by It's me
Yours as well.
MAJOR BUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since you were a "navy brat", I am supposing that you have knowledge about not spending a lot of time with one of your parents. How did it effect you?
You are very lucky. I am glad you recognise it. God bless your mother.
I am a couple of years younger than you. My father had a great job, but he was only home on weekends. My mother could have stayed home--but did not feel "fulfilled" doing so. She worked everynight until 10pm. Not because we needed the money. When she was home, on her day off, she was too tired to do any housework, or cook, or she wanted to shop or go out with her girlfriends. My siblings and I raised ourselves. We made our own "meals"...sometimes just bread butter and sugar! Often we wore dirty clothes to school, because she did not get up to see us off, or make breakfast. She was too tired.
It was a horrible existance. We were the latch key kids. And I will tell you, that it is NOT "fine". It is NEGLECT! No one to welcome you home. No one to hear how your day went. No hot meals. No clean clothes unless you wash them. No hugs on a bad day. No help with homework, or teaching of social skills. No parents at the school plays. No afterschool programs, because no one can take you or bring you home.
It makes kids feel invaluable. It makes them angry, to feel so insignificant to their own parents! If your own parents reject you, you feel very low indeed. And when a parent models such self centeredness as to bring children into the world, and to put their own "fulfillment" above the children's welfare, that IS rejection.
I am eternally thankful for neighbors who watched out for me. Neighbors like your mom, who invited me to dinner, and took me camping. I thank God for sending me good neighbors, who were not child molesters or other kinds of bad influences. I got my values from some great neighbors, and God, who always let me know I was valuable.
I know how you felt. I find it very hard to be a parent. I was not taught parenting skills. I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of tapes, take a lot of classes. But, I think the best thing I can do, is spend as much time with the kids as possible. Talk, play and listen. Seems to be what they want.
But I must admit I find it difficult to relate to them. A life spent dealing with all my own emotions, all my own problems and joys, on my own, does not give one the people skills they need to survive adulthood.
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